Daily Monitor
Tuesday May 11 2021
Summary
Covid-19. 2020 was a difficult year in the banking sector as borrowers capacity to repay loans was highly impacted by the pandemic.
Advertisement
Compared to tourism or education which continues to suffer the brunt of Covid-19 and the resultant containment measures instituted by the government to control the spread of the pandemic, the banking sector seems to be sailing through the tides rather unscathed as evidenced by the profit margins the industry players closed their accounts with.
Apart from banking and telecommunications, most economic sectors, including the Micro, Small and Medium enterprises continue to take a hit as the battle to contain the Covid-19 pandemic takes shape, thanks to the availability of a vaccine whose uptake remains disturbingly low.
As Lebanon teeters on the brink of economic collapse, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is poised to take over but not by military force. Providing the goods and services the country needs could make an Iranian dream come true.
Lebanon is still suffering from the impact of the massive explosion that ripped through the Beirut port last August. The death and damage to the Lebanese capital has devastated an already floundering economy and could contribute to a potential takeover by the terror group, Hezbollah.
“Lebanon is in very, very dire straits. The political arena is dysfunctional, therefore, the State practically is dysfunctional. There s no budget. The unemployment is 40, 50, 60 percent. Nobody really knows,” said Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Researcher of Islam and the Arab World at Bar-Ilan University.
Thousands gather at Mifflin Street Block Party despite UW, city warnings dailycardinal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailycardinal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
EDITORIAL: Make a real effort on climate change
In a long-anticipated Earth Day announcement, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday last week declared that her administration was determined to bring Taiwan in line with the international community in striving for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The pledge is a step forward from the government’s goal of halving emissions from 2005 levels by 2050, but it is also twice as ambitious. As Taiwan joins the world in refocusing its sights on the climate emergency, it is a good moment to review the nation’s energy mix and its plan for the coming transition.
According to the Bureau of Energy, fossil fuels last year made up 82.23 percent of the total energy supply, while nuclear power contributed 11.24 percent and renewables made up 5.4 percent.
For decades, marijuana flowed in one direction across the U.S.-Mexico border: north.
These days, drug enforcement agents regularly seize specialty strains of retail-quality cannabis grown in the United States being smuggled south.
Widespread legalization in the U.S. is killing Mexico’s marijuana business, and cartel leaders know it. They are increasingly abandoning the crop that was once was their bread and butter and looking elsewhere for profits, producing and exporting drugs including heroin and fentanyl and banking on extortion schemes and fuel theft.
So when Mexico’s tourism secretary this week boldly declared his hopes that Mexico will legalize marijuana for recreational use in an effort to reduce growing violence across the nation, some balked at the notion that marijuana was driving the bloodshed.